Thirty Seconds at Dusk
As the sun disappeared and daylight faded across the Gorman Hills, night-blooming Evening-snow (Linanthus dichotomus) began opening among a remarkably diverse mixture of wildflowers. Photographing the scene with extensive depth of field required an unusually long 30-second exposure, preserving a landscape caught at the transition between daylight and dusk.
The light was disappearing quickly as the sun dropped below the horizon. I wanted enough depth of field to hold the flowers and landscape together across the panoramic frame, and at f/50 the exposure stretched to a full 30 seconds.
That made the photograph unusually difficult. At this elevation there is often some breeze moving across the hills, and during a 30-second exposure even slight movement in the flowers can become visible. The scene required a rare interval of relative stillness while the remaining daylight continued to fade.
As dusk settled over the landscape, the Evening-snow began opening among California poppies, coreopsis, pygmy lupines, lacy phacelia, Bentham lupines, globe gilia, fiddlenecks, white layia and tidy tips. The photograph preserves that brief transition when the daytime bloom and the night-blooming flowers occupied the landscape together.